Flu and Fmew
by vands88
Summary: Alliteration rocks, doesn't it? Right, summary...10Rose. Rose is ill. Doctor tells silly stories about a planet he visited a while ago. There really isn’t much of a plot, just my attempt at cheesy jokes and an excuse to make fun of ‘Rickey the Idiot’.


**Title: **Flu and Fmew (The joys of alliteration)**  
Author: **Me (vands88) believe it or not.**  
Rating: **PG, I suppose.  
**Pairing: **10th Doctor/Rose**  
Timeline: **Erm…after Mickey has left and before the season 2 finale. So…TIP & TSP kind of time? It doesn't really matter, tenth Doctor anyhow.**  
Genre: **My first attempt at a happy fic for at least a year. I've sprinkled a bit of angst in there for good measure, but it's mainly some good 'ld Doctor/Rose fun.**  
Warnings: **None! Unless you have some sort of flu phobia or are terrified of cough syrup. Oh, and giant rats.**  
Summary: **Rose is ill. Doctor tells silly stories about a planet he visited a while ago. There really isn't much of a plot, just my attempt at cheesy jokes and an excuse to make fun of 'Rickey the Idiot'.**  
Disclaimer: **I don't own Doctor Who…or Fmew, or Tesco, or Benylin or any other weird and wonderful things mentioned in this ficlet, yes, unfortunately that does include the chocolate covered strawberries.

**A/N: **Thanks to **Grace** and **Nick** for letting me steal their planet (and **Naygay** aka Wisewoman for her quotable quotes), as I'm far too lazy to think of my own. Btw, this hasn't been beta'd so it's probably full of mistakes.

**Just a note (yes, another one) this fic is almost based entirely on inside jokes, so you may find it hilariously funny or you may be staring at the screen for half an hour screaming "WTF?!", so let me know how you find it!**

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"Urgh." Rose muttered sleepily, stepping into the control room of the TARDIS.

"You okay?" Rose's head snapped up to the sound of the familiar voice, not knowing The Doctor was present, but sure enough, there he was tinkering with the control panel right in front of her.

"Umm…yeah, I guess. I think I'm catching a cold though." Her voice came out as a strained whisper, due to the fact that she had the worst sore throat in history and was trying to hide it from the doctor.

So much for that plan.

Rose could tell that the Doctor saw right through her and knew she was in pain simply by the way he looked at her. She saw the look of sympathy he gave her when she tried to clear her throat but instead winced at the pain that shot through her throat.

"I know just the thing for you!" He exclaimed, making Rose jump slightly. _'Why did he always get so overly excited over things like this?'_

"Excellent stuff this. Got it from the planet of Fmew a couple of years back. Fantastic medicine, can make any signs of cold and flu disappear before you can say Wisewoman!"

"Fmew? Wisewomen?" Rose questioned quietly, following the Doctor as he lead her down the corridor to the kitchen.

"Ah yes, brilliant planet, Fmew. You'd like it, 'course you have to travel about…say, 40 years into the future and then finding it is a bit tricky 'cause it's so small. Great place though, packed full of people! I mean, actual, proper people! On a different planet! It's fantastic!"

Rose raised an eyebrow at his enthusiasm, but was none the less intrigued. "You mean people, like me, actually run the planet?"

"Well, yes, kind of. The Queen's a bit mad, but on the bright side there's an endless supply of chocolate covered strawberries."

Rose's mouth dropped open and she stop walking, the Doctor following suit. "You're kidding me, right?"

"Nope." He said with a smile, bouncing on the balls of his feet "Well, when I say 'endless' there is a limit, of course there's a limit, that's the rules of physics!"

"Right then…" Rose said, trying to stop the Doctor before he ended up talking about physics for the next five hours as she started to walk again. "Why were you in Gmew anyway?"

"It's _Fmew_ Rose, not Gmew." He said sounding exasperated.

"Whatever. Why were you there?" She asked, her voice still a little croaky.

He sighed, "Well, if you really want to know…I was saving them from giant rats."

Rose burst out laughing, but ended up painfully coughing due to her sore throat that she had previously forgotten about.

"You okay?" The Doctor asked concerned.

_'Maybe he does care about me after all…' _she thought, mumbling an answer back before he opened the door for her and they stepped into the kitchen.

"Seriously though…giant rats?" She asked, watching as he closed the door behind him and starting rifling through cupboards.

The Doctor looked up at her a minute. "Yeah. Seriously."

He dug his head back in a cupboard before continuing, "The Wisewoman of Fmew contacted me, said they had a problem with rats. I thought she was crazy at first, but when I got there I realised the extent of the problem…" He trailed off, bringing a glass out of the cabinet. "Voila!" The Doctor exclaimed, closing the cupboard door and placing the bottle on the worktop with a sense of triumph.

"Doctor?"

"Yeah?"

"It's empty."

Rose watched as the Doctor's face turned into one of shock, confusion and then understanding. "Dammit. Mickey must've finished it."

"Wait a minute. 'Rickey the Idiot' knew about the magic potion but you didn't let me in on it?" Rose asked, faking annoyance.

"Well…umm…he sort of found it once." He rambled, throwing the useless, clear and empty bottle aside.

"Fantastic." Rose muttered under her breath. "Got anything else for me?"

"I guess we'll just have to see." The Doctor said with a wink before immersing himself in the cupboard full of junk once more. He came out a few minutes later with a dark coloured bottle in his hand and placed it on the worktop in triumph.

Rose raised a single eyebrow. "Benylin. You're telling me you've travelled time and space for nine hundred years and the best thing you have for a common human cold is Benylin?!"

"Could be worse." The Doctor stated, shrugging slightly. "Could've got Tesco Value cough syrup instead."

She rolled her eyes and sighed, grudgingly admitting defeat and taking the dark bottle from him. "It will have to do I suppose." Rose muttered, checking the best before date on the back of the container before sliding off her stool at the kitchen table, grabbing a spoon and wandering towards the door.

"And where do you think you're going Rose Tyler?"

She turned around at his voice, seeing the Doctor, hands on hips, trying to pull of a stern look. It didn't work.

"I dunno…grab some tissues and get ready for the next time we crash-land on a planet and get chased by some scary looking green aliens?"

"Oh no. I don't think so Miss.Tyler."

She raised an eyebrow as he moved closer towards her. "And why is that Doctor?" she argued back, standing her ground.

"Because…" He whispered, trying to remember desperately what he was going to say and _not _focusing on how close they were at that moment…or how he could just lean in a kiss her… "Because, you are going to bed and resting!" He exclaimed, dragging her by the hand in the direction of her bedroom.

Rose groaned but followed none the less. Even though staying in bed was not on her list of things to do, surely she could manage to just lounge around all day and let the Doctor look after her?

Eventually the Doctor had her tucked up in bed and he was sent constantly to go fetch cups of tea and books for his ill companion. He didn't mind, apart from the constant jokes from Rose about him going domestic, but beside fixing the TARDIS it was the only thing he had to do. After a couple of days, Rose's cold had worsened somewhat to resemble flu and the Doctor found himself acting like a babysitter. She seemed to have discovered an interest in Fmew, and so every night, after the Doctor had denied that he was going domestic, he would find himself telling her stories about his time there.

"…and then the Wisewoman said to me 'I have a whole new outlook on lamp posts' I had no idea what the mad woman was going on about of course…"

"…then they took me to a field of strawberries. It was quite a sight really, miles and miles of chocolate covered strawberries, everywhere you looked! And the taste…"

"…and then this supposed Wisewoman said that ' because normal is comparative it means you can actually defy the laws of English and most other languages simply by defining something as normal. And because all laws are related, you could theoretically defy the laws of gravity'. Of course, that's all complete nonsense, but I wasn't about to tell the Wisewoman of Fmew that she was speaking complete and utter crap in case I got thrown off the planet and into the nearest black hole…"

"…I only met the King once or twice, we didn't really talk much, he was too busy doing…whatever kings do. He offered me a nice place in the castle though; the view was fantastic! Mind you…"

"...and the Queen! She is _beautiful_! She's like one of those princesses you read about in fairytales when you're young. In fact, a fairytale would actually describe the whole planet…minus the giant rat invasion that is…"

"…I got on really well with the Wisewoman. 90 of the time I had no idea what she was going on about, but the rest of the time? She's a flipping genius! Did I ever tell you about her theory of circles? Now, firstly you need to think of the universe as one huge bubble…"

Safe to say that Rose fell asleep most nights due to the Doctor's long rambles about quantum physics, but she was glad for the company and enjoyed hearing more about his surreptitious life. Rose didn't dare tell him how much she liked it when sometimes he held her hand while talking to her, or how she really was awake that one time when he left a kiss on her forehead and wished her goodnight. The sad thing was, no matter how much she loved him there was nothing that she could do about it. She knew the Doctor didn't feel the same way as she did, and even if he did, they couldn't do anything about. He said it himself _"You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of mine with you. That's the curse of the Time Lords."_

Rose sighed against her pillow, wondering how many times she's played those lines over and over again in her mind. If being ill wasn't bad enough, she had to be bloody depressed too.

_"You wither and you die"._

_'Couldn't he have put it in a slightly less gloomy way?'_ she thought miserably as she went to grab another tissue and blow her nose.

Just then the Doctor walked through the door carrying another cup of tea. "You know, it's not very considerate of you to blow that loudly, you might disturb the TARDIS."

"Oi!" Rose croaked, mastering the energy to throw a pillow in his direction. He ducked it expertly and set her tea down on the table next to the bed.

"Another thing. It's not such a great idea to throw a pillow at me when I'm carrying a very hot cup of tea which I spent ages making just for you."

Rose could tell he was trying to guilt trip her again, a frequent habit of his tenth incarnation. But she was too tired to argue, so she muttered an apology before sitting up to drink her tea.

He came and sat next to her on the bed. "You feeling okay today?"

"I've been worse."

The Doctor had to smile at that. Rose Tyler had been kidnapped by aliens, had to put on an absolutely awful Scottish accent and had been nearly killed by a Dalek, an army of Cybermen, and many other nasty things that go bump in the night. And here she was, wrapped up in bed, drinking tea despite it all.

"How did I get a cold anyway, I mean I've been stuck on this bloody TARDIS for ages, I haven't set foot on Earth for several weeks." Rose pondered.

"Well, if you really want to know, it's merely a combination of environmental science and a fair bit of physics. See, because the TARDIS has a strong gravitational field…."

Rose zoned out soon after that and focused on drinking her tea. Ten minutes later, the mug was empty and he was _still_ talking. After what seemed like an eternity of science talk that only The Doctor himself could understand, he eventually stopped.

"You weren't listening to a single word of that were you?" He asked, feigning a look of hurt.

"What can I say? My mug was far more fascinating then yet another physics lesson. You know, there's a little chip on the corner, right here…"

The Doctor took the mug off her before she could even point to the supposed damage and put it on the table next to her. "Basically, Rose Tyler, your immune system got a bit motion sick. Well, either that or the TARDIS got bored and thought it would be fun to make you ill for a bit."

"Oh. Why didn't you just say that in the first place then?"

He simply rolled his eyes at her and was getting up to leave when a hand on his arm stopped him. The Doctor turned to see Rose smiling up at him.

"Can we go to Fmew? When I'm better, I mean?"

"Yeah…yeah, of course we can." He said, giving her a lopsided smile.

"Just make sure it's _after_ the giant rat invasion, yeah?"

The Doctor feigned hurt, "Don't you trust me? When have I ever landed in the wrong time?"

"For one, the time when you took us to 1876 instead on 1976 and got us nearly killed for a werewolf."

"Ok, so once…"

"And the time when I arrived home a year late."

"That was only a slight miscalculation, I was meant to…"

"And the time when…"

"Whoa! Ok, you win!" The Doctor put his hand up in mock surrender "Maybe, sometimes, on occasion, I accidentally land us a year or two out."

Rose snorted, that had to be the understatement of the century. "Well, whatever you say, just make sure that you do it right this time."

"Yes, Ma'am."

The next couple of days flew by and Rose was soon fully recovered apart from the odd cough now and again. The Doctor and Rose slowly grew closer together and eventually started a romantic relationship while visiting Fmew. Life went on, the universe kept on expanding, and the fields covered in chocolate strawberries are alive and well. I mean the strawberries are alive, not the fields…

Oh, and the Wisewoman of Fmew did defy the laws of gravity.

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I think that's the weirdest, most light-hearted, craptastic, and most…_interesting_ fic I've ever written. 

Constructive and positive comments are welcome.


End file.
